I'm not really on the "blanket forgiveness" bandwagon. And frankly, if someone was dumb enough to pay a quarter million bucks for a useless degree at a for profit college they selected because it has luxury apartment dorms and swimming pool - I don’t want to help them either.
I might be in favor of virtually free or low cost state and city college, i think NYC made a great move by making CUNY ( City University of New York) free to most students.
And I could support a program like HARP, maybe making provisions to refinance the worst loans at low or no interest.
Yeah, god forbid people be held liable. "I can't control my own actions!"
Also, there already is a "virtually free or
low cost state and city college"... it's called community college... but you know.. it's not cool... It doesn't have
RADICAL dorm rooms, a mega high rise swimming pool or anything... it's just.. you know.. classes. Some kids need their safe space, ya know?
1) Provide education with full rides to the top 10-20% of students at every high school. I believe GWB put this in place during his time as governor or Texas.
2) Limit the amount that can be borrowed - even from private sources - for college. This applies downward pressure on rising college costs.
3) Make students loans bankruptable. Give the lenders some skin in the game. Make them have to assume risk to make the loans. As it is it's another example of 'privatized profit/socialized risk' that we see so often in the financial industry.
FYI - Rule in Texas is Top 10% of graduates from high school can go to any public university in the state IIRC. I don't recall that it has anything to do with financial aspects of it - just acceptance into the university